


(here is the root of the root)

by mangemouth



Category: Gintama
Genre: Canon, Gen, Joui War, M/M, Pre-Joui War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-16 21:02:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/866571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangemouth/pseuds/mangemouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Ginzura and Co through the years; for <a href="http://legein.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://legein.livejournal.com/"><b>legein</b></a>. 50-prompt theme set taken from <a href="http://1sentence.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://1sentence.livejournal.com/"></a><b>1sentence</b> [although I did <i>a lot</i> more than one sentence and broke every rule but "write stuff"]. This was written a long time ago, so there are some recent canon updates that don't quite gel.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ginzura and Co through the years; for [](http://legein.livejournal.com/profile)[**legein**](http://legein.livejournal.com/). 50-prompt theme set taken from [](http://1sentence.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://1sentence.livejournal.com/)**1sentence** [although I did _a lot_ more than one sentence and broke every rule but "write stuff"]. This was written a long time ago, so there are some recent canon updates that don't quite gel.

**#01 - Air**  
The dojo is small and old, but it isn’t musty, it isn’t claustrophobic [it isn’t anything like the place he once lived]. There is a gentle warmth tucked in the whorls of aged wood that he has never before experienced.

Katsura’s small hands tighten on the edge of his kimono [and nervously, excitedly, he breathes in air that feels fresh and alive for the very first time].

 **#02 – Apples**  
Gintoki is not homesick. He isn’t thinking about his grandmother, who had been a clever, sprightly old hag [right up until the very end]. He isn’t thinking about the relaxed routine he’d grown so used to, the comfort of his little, cluttered room, or the favourite climbing-trees he’d left behind.

He misses the apples, that’s all. Everyone knows the apples in the country are best.

 **#03 - Beginning**  
“Sensei,” calls out a boy next to him. He has strange, puffed-out white hair and a lazy drawl of a voice. “Sensei, why is that girl here? Aa, I thought only men could be samurai. I don’t want to train with a stupid girl. She’s not even that pretty.” There are a few moments of silence while the horror dawns upon Katsura that the boy’s finger is pointing at...him.

“Sensei, she’s blushing. I don’t want to train with a stupid blushing girl who probably is just here to find a husband anyway-”

Under the gob-smacked, frozen look of his new mentor and the laughing eyes of the class, something that Katsura has held firmly within check finally snaps.

After the two are pried apart, Gintoki’s seat is moved to the back of the class, and Katsura spends the rest of their first lesson in a puddle of shame.

[It’s the beginning of something, anyway.]

 **#04 - Bugs**  
It seems that no matter how quickly Katsura moves, how attentive he is to catch the very first call of _Bed time!_ , he is unable to change the location of his futon. Every night, he ends up sandwiched between sprawling Gintoki and smelly Kugimiya, and it is hard to say which one of them is worse.

Of course, that tough decision changes after the evening Katsura silently watches a twitching, beetle-like creature emerge from Kugimiya’s futon and crawl towards his.

“Shove over,” grunts Gintoki sleepily, as Katsura edges onto his mat for the third time in as many minutes. “You’re crowding me.”

 **#05 – Morning**  
Shoyou revels in the minutes just before the first call to wake.

They are peaceful moments, in which he simply walks through the well-worn dojo and sips his green tea. With the boys still asleep, there is a lingering feeling of anticipation, of dormant excitement about to renew itself at a moment’s notice.

Perhaps that is what he loves best; that every morning, no matter the season, is spring [though his students, he thinks with a chuckle as he hears the first few disgruntled, clumsy noises, were anything but morning glories].

 **#06 – Dark**  
Gintoki really likes the other’s hair. It doesn’t occur to him that this might be weird [and if it did occur to him, it’s not like he would actually _care_ that it might be]. Zura’s hair is everything his wild, spongy perm is not; it’s sleek and soft, black as the nightfall outside. He has even begun to look forward to the thunderstorms that make the calm, quiet boy shake with anxiety.

“Come on, you big baby,” he whispers, moving over on his futon.

Katsura blushes fiercely, looking defensive, but complies all too readily to give his statement any weight. “I’m not scared-”

“I don’t care, just get in. You’re keeping me awake with your whimpering.”

“I wasn’t whimpering! Your futon has crumbs in it. That’s gross. Why were you eating on your futon?”

“...Otomo-san says I have low blood sugar and I need to have cookies in bed.”

“Liar.”

“Shut up and go to sleep!”

When Katsura is dozing fitfully against his side, Gintoki buries his nose in the dark strands. It even _smells_ nice.

 **#07 - Despair**  
Takasugi and Gintoki are brawling again. Katsura knows that they, along with anyone within a fifteen foot radius including himself, will get hall-wiping duty if the fight escalates much farther. Gintoki is already bleeding from the nose when, steeling himself, Katsura gets between them. “ _Stop_ it, you’re going to get in-”

Gintoki suddenly sneezes explosively, blood and boogers splattering across Katsura’s cheek. “Oh,” says the white-haired boy. “Sorry. If stupid Takasugi didn’t-”

“You deserved that, you idiot permhead-”

“ _What did you call me-_ ”

With Katsura now catatonic in disgust, the fight rages on [and yes, they all end up with hall-wiping duty].

 **#08 - Doors**  
Katsura frowns. “What do you mean, ‘It’s stuck?’”

The white-haired boy gives the pantry door another shake. “I mean, it’s the opposite of opening, stupid,” he huffs. Frown deepening, Katsura vacillates between panic [at being caught], shame [at being talked into sneaking into the pantry and caught], and a stubborn level headedness [at solving the problem presented to them, which is figuring out how to not get caught sneaking into the pantry].

“You know,” he murmurs, sitting primly on a sack of flour, “Kojima said this pantry was haunted.”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha,” replies Gintoki, waving a hand quickly back and forth, as if to fan the words right out of the air like a particularly offensive fart. “Kojima’s a moron, ah-ha-ha-ha-ha, I mean, as if _anybody_ with half a brain believes in ghosts-”

The black haired boy toes a bag of peas onto the floor with a sudden, heavy _whomp!_ , and Gintoki screams.

The door doesn’t stay stuck for long [nor does it stay attached to the door frame].

 **#09 – Drink**  
It’s the kind of sky that unfurls like a bright parasol, wide and vivid above. Otomo-san, the housekeeper, idly reads off to the side of the pond, while the samurai-to-be are an exercise in juvenile hyperactivity.

Zura, shy and subdued, is wading just beyond the banks with Matsuo [talking about whatever Zura talks about with other people]. Gintoki, high up on a rock, does not make the amateur mistake of calling out ‘canon ball.’ He is silent as a broken noisemaker as he leaps over the water, aiming as closely to the shallow end as he dares.

The resulting splash is nothing to sneeze at [although Katsura does, at length, thanks to the water now clogging up his entire respiratory system].

“Zuraaa,” calls Gintoki, floating on his back, the picture of tranquility. “The water’s not for drinking.”

It takes Katsura ten minutes to coherently sputter and cough his real name back [and by then Gintoki has already forgotten about the whole affair entirely].

 **#10 – Duty**  
There are few things that Katsura holds in higher regard than Sensei’s teachings. He’s not like stupid Gintoki, falling asleep in the back of the class, then begging homework off anyone with ears. Katsura works diligently, trying his hardest to pay attention to every moment of the lesson. Sometimes, he worries that he is not being diligent enough, and he repeats “duty, duty, duty” in his mind to get back on track.

Unfortunately, when the white haired boy asks him what today’s lesson was about, the smaller boy finds he has absolutely no idea. “Duty?” he hazards.

Gintoki gives him a flat look. “It was _not_ about _doodie._ What is _wrong_ with you?”

 **#11 - Earth**  
Katsura has always liked small, dark spaces. When he was younger [surely, he is mature enough to say that now], his largely empty home had been full of nooks and crannies that afforded all kinds of hiding places for a solitary boy to retreat to. Alone with his imagination, he’d sat in his small spaces, mind drifting far away, his daydreams knowing no boundaries [unlike the ones that outlined his life, the ones that kept the gazes of his parents stopping short of _seeing_ him].

When Gintoki discovers his favourite spot [inside a huge, hollow tree trunk that smells of earth and life] Katsura surprises himself by not being upset about losing his secret, losing his privacy. If anything, he hopes the other boy approves.

The white haired boy sniffs once or twice, and then crams himself into the trunk. “S’kinda like a pirate hide-out,” he says matter-of-factly.

Katsura smiles [he’s never had a first mate before].

 **#12 – Fall**  
During their first few kendo lessons, Shouyou had thought he had the fighting styles of the two boys pegged.

Katsura was all form and speed, and Gintoki was all surprise and force; this was not uncommon at all, given their respective temperaments and attention spans. What _was_ uncommon was the difference that began to set in once he’d pitted them against each other. He’d avoided having them spar together to bypass the time he would waste disciplining them [they were an unpredictable duo; inseparable, then at each other’s throats, then joined at the hip again, all in the blink of an eye].

What he saw over the days they worked together was nothing short of intriguing. Most boys coveted their individual skills to keep an edge over their comrades, out of friendly rivalry and competition. However, the two boys seemed to trade their skills easily, without discussion or pause; Gintoki had to match Katsura’s form to block his blows quickly enough, and temper his force so he did not tire first. Katsura, in turn, had to develop a keen sense of surprise in order to strike, and the ability to block the other’s stronger blows successfully. They fought fluidly, their movements seeming almost rehearsed if not for the occasional startled grunt [or slipped-out swear]. Sparring against others, Shouyou was pleasantly surprised to see Katsura lunging in a manner characteristic of the white haired boy, and Gintoki’s footwork a direct copy of Katsura’s quick feet.

Today, they are sparringdancingfighting together, and it is Gintoki that falls to the hard floor after a particularly quick succession of hits. The two pant, the exertion of the long fight showing on them both. For a moment, everyone watching holds their breath; Gintoki is an infamous sore loser.

“ _Ah,_ jeez that hurt, you stupid wighead. Oi oi, can you show me that backhand-duck-thing?” is all he says, reaching up a hand.

Katsura nods shortly, pulling his friend to his feet, replying neutrally, “You would have seen it coming if your ugly perm wasn’t in your eyes.”

 **#13 – End**  
Somehow, no one expects it to be Takasugi. As the boys walk down the road, the short boy lets out a low keen [more like that of a sick animal than anything _human_ ]. The keen turns into a low, shuddering groan, that ratchets higher in intensity, until it crashes down again into a sob. Then the sobs keep coming, like waves upon the uncaring shores that are Gintoki’s ears. Walking next to Takasugi, who everyonenoone is glancing at out of the corner of their eyes, Kojima begins to cry, too, unable to hold back anymore in the face of such raw hurt.

The boy beside Gintoki says something, something bitter and unkind, and although Gintoki can’t _hear_ the words over the rage that has been pounding in his brain [sincesincesince-], the sneering mouth serves just fine as a target. Fist clenched so hard the knuckles turn white, he lifts it-

-and stops because of the pale hand that _doesn’t_ touch his shoulder, and the calm, dry voice that _isn’t_ chiding him.

Gintoki slows his mindless, mechanical gait and drops back in the group, then drops behind it, where Zura trails, the very last of the pack. His face is turned towards the ground.

“Zura,” the taller boy slurs [as if he’s forgotten how to speak]. Katsura looks up automatically and he isn’t crying; he isn’t anything at all. The hazel eyes are empty, bottomless. Gintoki has never seen the other boy retreated so far into himself. He hates it. He hates _them._ The dojo they’re headed to, the revolutionaries’ den, is where he’ll be able to make _them_ pay for his dead teacher, and for Zura’s dead eyes.

Taking the other boy’s hand to pull him along, Gintoki’s voice is rough. “We need to stay together,” he says. He means with the group [as the open road is treacherous and there is a great safety in great numbers], but Katsura’s hand _tightens_ , and it means something else entirely.

They do not separate until they reach the dojo.

 **#14 - War**  
Despite the popular belief that, immediately following birth, children from the country are thrown into saddles, Gintoki has never ridden a horse before. Frankly, he doesn’t trust them very much, doesn’t even _like_ them [unlike Katsura, who has been blushing and unresponsive since the big-nostril beasts had been led out of the stable]. The white-haired man heaves a sigh; the stupid, smelly things are necessary, if they are ever to catch up to their new company.

“Her nose is so soft,” gasps Zura. “I’m going to name her Chrissie.” He swings up into ‘Chrissie’s’ saddle like he has been doing it all his life, which rankles when it takes Gintoki eight tries to seat himself.

It seems too simple, but just like that, to the sound of hooves and swearing at faulty stirrups, the boys are off to war.

[It gives Gintoki no little satisfaction that, after they discover the joys of ‘saddle burn,’ Chrissie’s name is changed to something _far_ less cute.]

 **#15 – Roses**  
“It’s like having a little brother,” Katsura blurts suddenly, with that familiar half-daydreaming, half-urgent tone characteristic of when Katsura has no idea he is speaking aloud. His eyes are on Sakamoto, who is walking alongside the supply cart ahead in grand strides [he seems taller every day now]. The younger man seems to be laughing at the donkey’s ears.

Gintoki raises an eyebrow, looking at Katsura out of the corner of his eye, but Katsura only blushes vaguely in embarrassment and says nothing. He then becomes tight lipped and aloof, projecting himself as someone more silent than a mute, baldie monk up in the mountains.

Despite the effort put forth, the image is ruined when the donkey makes a half-hearted attempt to kick the loud, annoying human next to it. Katsura mumbles something not entirely suited to his polite, dull exterior, and hurries his next few steps to separate beast and idiot.

As Gintoki absently watches the other samurai fuss over stupid Sakamoto [“Hahahaha! Sorry, I can’t help it! I’m an ass man! Hahahaha!”], he begins to think about Zura’s accidental admission. Before the thought can even begin to form, however, the stupid wig-head wipes dirt from the idiot’s face, and instead Gintoki is left picturing Katsura in a bright, floral kimono and modestly applied eye shadow, warmly but sternly reminding a much smaller Sakamoto to wash his hands before dinner.

No, he thinks with a slowly creeping horror at himself, it’s not like having a little brother.

It’s like being a parent.

A few minutes later, when Gintoki whaps Sakamoto upside the head and shouts at him to get a job, nobody gets it [which is probably a good thing].

 **#16 - Food**  
Katsura does not like to touch or be touched.

It is mostly during meals that Gintoki wonders at this odd, inaccessible part of the other samurai, when everyone is crowding around the low, spitting fire warming their meal pot. In the bum-rush to get a suitable scoop of rice or the heftiest looking pork bun, Katsura’s aversion to touch becomes strikingly apparent. The black haired samurai weaves and dodges in the throng, and when he returns with his bowl he easily ducks even Sakamoto’s friendly out-flung arm.

“Are you going to eat all that?” Gintoki asks, leaning over to inspect the other’s helping.

Katsura looks put-upon, first bite poised in front of his mouth. “Yes.”

“I just want one-”

“No.”

“You can’t eat that big ol’ pork bun by yourself, Zura.”

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura-”

“You just don’t have it in you.”

“If you don’t leave me alone you are going to have my foot in your-”

Predictably, the argument turns into a scuffle, which Zura wins because he is an underhanded bastard [and yeah, it’s probably going to screw up Gintoki’s spine _forever_ the way Zura is sitting on it like that, but the contact is solid].

 **#17 – Grave**  
Gintoki dislikes Takasugi. He has always disliked Takasugi. He dislikes his smirk, dislikes the way he talks, dislikes the smell of that stupid tobacco pipe.

Zura dismisses their constant fighting as remnants of their childhood, a sign of immaturity. “Grow up,” he mumbles at them when they return from gathering firewood with matching black eyes. Sakamoto laughs, but it’s uneasy, and he quickly engages Takasugi [ruffling his hair and making some crack about getting wood].

They’re not _stupid,_ Zura and Sakamoto; just stupidly kind, stupidly optimistic, stupidly forgiving of those they’re loyal to. Zura labours under the [false] assumption that Takasugi and he are, if not friends, at least comrades, as if the world is some big brotherhood where everyone _respects_ each other. Sakamoto is Sakamoto; who knows what [if] he’s really thinking in that afro, but the effort he puts out to smooth things over, to be friendly with Takasugi, are beyond his usual cheerfully oblivious fare.

The intentions are good and so, so _apparent_ , but that son of a bitch never _changes._ Takasugi will accept their kindnesses and concern all the while he dismisses them as being weak for it.

“They aren’t like us, Gintoki,” he drawls around his pipe as they share watch, Sakamoto and Zura asleep only a few feet away. The shorter man chuckles, but it’s not a happy sound. “They don’t know rage like we do, ah, Shiroyasha?”

Gintoki starts to hate him that night- when he recognizes all the snarling demons within himself baying at him from Takasugi’s single, all too knowing eye. It is a hate that he knows he cannot do anything but accept [they will always be bound by a grave that was never dug, a body that was never buried, and mourning colours never worn].

 **#18 – Head**  
Sakamoto is laughing fit to bust a gut, cheeks flush with drink. The company is in great spirits tonight; yesterday’s battle had been a total victory, with no casualties. “Watch, watch,” the idiot is saying into Gintoki’s ear, too loudly. He does, and lo and behold, just as Sakamoto predicted, it is no time at all before a bolder pair of village girls wander up to the table where Zura and Takasugi sit drinking. It is a common occurrence- their dark, serious good looks drew the local women in, but the second either of the two men opened their mouths-

-well, the girls quickly realized that maybe one of the louder, less good looking ones would do.

“Who do you think will blow it first, eh, Gintoki?” laughs Sakamoto, looking rather optimistic. “Ahaha, I’ll bet a round on Takasugi!” It makes sense to go with Takasugi, who is a weirdly talkative drunk, rather than Zura, who, sober or smashed, rarely engages the village girls, and is too painfully shy to even flirt in the first place.

But it only takes Gintoki one glance at Zura’s face to know the other is well and _truly_ plastered.

“A round on Zura,” he mumbles over his cup.

“Hahaha! Deal!”

Takasugi is already speaking with them, hands waving in the air a bit drunkenly, the sword-cutting motions he pantomimes making it clear he is talking about their victory. His lips curl in a sneering leer as he recounts the story with just a little _too_ much force, a few too many details not entirely suited for polite conversation, his intense green eyes not even totally focusing on the girls. They begin to look uncomfortable, and Sakamoto practically bounces in his seat beside Gintoki.

“Ahahaha, you should get the barkeep’s attention now, hahaha!”

Zura’s head [which had bowed nervously over his cup when the women had approached] suddenly picks up as he mumbles something, and Gintoki grins. The shorter samurai is now the centre of attention. Zura dislikes being the centre of attention. He’s confessed to Gintoki that he dislikes it so much that when it happens, he often gets-

“ _Huwwaaaauuugh!_ ”

-nauseous.

He can always count on Zura.

“It must be your lucky day!” chuckles Sakamoto good-naturedly over the screams. The girls look like they could use some comfort, which makes Sakamoto grin even wider. “Ahahaha, or maybe it’s mine!” he adds with a wink, standing up and intercepting the fleeing girls quickly with a, “Hey, hey, you’re both really pretty, I promise I won’t barf on your sandals! -Where are you going? Can I come too?”

It isn’t until Sakamoto is out of sight that Gintoki realizes that idiot _bastard_ didn’t buy him his round. “Zuraaaa!” he shouts across the tavern. “You owe me a round!”

“Okaaay,” calls back Zura fuzzily, wiping his mouth.

 **#19 – Light**  
They rush through the undergrowth after the fleeing party of Amanto, twigs snapping under their charging feet [like bones, like triumph]. The gangly, strangely reptilian legs of the creatures are too ungainly on the unfamiliar terrain, and their flight is short lived. When two are felled by arrows, their leader belts an unearthly cry, and the Amanto swing around all at once, tails lashing for balance behind them like rudders. Their foreign movements had once made Katsura uncertain, disturbed by their alien nature. Now, he sees only bodies and motions and weapons unfit to meet the force of a true samurai head on.

The samurai do not stop their charge, not when the beasts snarl, raising axes and throwing sharp, eccentrically shaped projectiles. Katsura weaves and dodges, his naginata held loosely in his hands, an extension of himself as it deflects the whirring thrown weapons. He is the first one to hit the line of Amanto, and he bows low and plunges the long, wicked blade of the naginata into the exposed belly of a creature. With a yell, he braces the pole and rips the blade upwards, lifting the Amanto clear off the ground, letting gravity further cleave it’s entire upper body in two, the spiked rivets of the blade hooking and catching on the jaw bone. He flings the body overhead and sideways, and it falls to the roots and dirt in a ghastly, hemorrhaging heap.

The entire action happens in just a few scant seconds.

Fleeing was the beasts’ _only_ chance at survival.

Near him, Gintoki lets loose a warrior’s shout as he swings his sword in a fast arc, decapitating two Amanto at once. The rest of the skirmish progresses too quickly to keep track of; Katsura expertly cleaves a wide hole in the group with furious, swift swings of his naginata until a lone Amanto manages to slip past it [admittedly, right into his katana]. Takasugi barks something to him that his senses have already processed, and as he withdraws the katana from the ribcage of one Amanto, he thrusts it backwards into the one that had advanced behind him. Stab, duck, slice, impale, breathe, repeat [you have threatened our landslivesideals, and _you will not be shown any mercy_ ].

When Katsura wipes the blood from his face, he turns it towards the dawn of the new day [towards the light of the rising sun of Japan].

 **#20 – Solid**  
Their entire company is packed like sardines across the floor of an abandoned barn. Katsura knows his body needs rest desperately, but finds his mind whirling, and his eyes staring at the rafters above.

“Come on, you big idiot,” Gintoki whispers near his ear [and even now, Katsura marvels, years later, the other man still has _no idea_ what a real whisper sounds like]. The white-haired samurai peels back the smelly, scratchy blanket, opening it to him.

“I’m not scared,” Katsura murmurs, and he isn’t. But his conviction [everything] feels shaky, these days. How much good are they really doing? Is this really honouring Sensei’s memory? Why don’t the men talk about their plans for after the war, anymore?

“I don’t care, just get in,” comes the lazy drawl, breaking through the waves of doubt, followed by a pair of arms that easily pull Katsura against the taller man’s chest. “You’re keeping me awake with all your thinking.”

“Some people do that, sometimes, thinking,” Katsura sighs back distractedly. The blanket settling back around them seems oddly familiar, the stench of it even more so. He blinks a few times. “This blanket smells like ox. Did you steal this off one of the oxen?”

“...The ox told me it was making him overheat and he paid me 300 yen to take it.”

“Liar.”

“Shut up and go to sleep.”

Katsura’s mouth twitches and surprisingly, his eyelids suddenly do feel heavy , as if taking their cue from the weight of Gintoki’s head on top of his, or the grounding arm slung around his waist. Finally, Katsura rests [even if everything else is shaky and uncertain, Gintoki will always be here, solid and real].

 **#21 - Secret**  
Sakamoto knows more than the company thinks he does. It’s pretty funny how that is, so he laughs when he thinks about it [and he laughs at Gintoki’s morning hair, and he laughs at Takasugi’s oral fixation, and he laughs at- well, _a lot_ of things].

Most of the secrets he knows are funny- like that Yoita is afraid of spiders, and will scream like a little girl if you put one in his tent. But not everything is so amusing, and Sakamoto knows unhappy secrets as well- like how Takasugi is slipping further away from them every day, becoming consumed by whatever he hides behind his sneers and bandages. And yes, it seems strange, but even in the midst of this gritty war, he has found out some happy secrets too, like the reason why it is only Gintoki who is able to make Katsura laugh as if he isn’t holding anything back.

It goes without saying that Sakamoto knows his own secrets [and soon, so soon, he’ll find out the secret of what lies out there in the great black void, too].

 **#22 - Honour**  
Thanks to Zura’s promotion of rank, they haven’t paid for a drink all night.

“Congratulations, Katsura-san,” says yet another recruit, depositing another round of drinks on the table. Katsura, who as of yet has not refused a single drink on the grounds of being rude, is so drunk at this point all he can do is smile and nod. As the recruit bows and returns to his place at the bar, Zura lifts one of the cups-

-and misses his mouth completely. The sake pours down his jaw into his hair.

“Ahaha,” he chuckles, quiet huffs of normally so hard-earned laughter. “My hair is thirsty.”

For Gintoki, it’s strange and amusing to be on the other side of the sobriety spectrum [he has the unlucky privilege of being one of the watchmen tonight]. “You’re hammered,” he observes fondly.

Zura makes an effort to try and straighten his bizarrely loose posture. “I am not hammering anything,” he replies with great dignity. He’s _still_ smiling, as if it’s not an almost alien expression for his gloomy face [as if he knows it does something indescribable and _agitating_ to the backs of Gintoki’s knees to see it, and is just trying to piss him off, as usual].

“Your tiny brain’ll be hammering tomorrow.”

“No it won’t. S’not tiny.”

“Not as tiny as other things.”

“Mm. What?”

“Ah, you really are plastered, tomorrow you’re going to be such a pain.”

“You’re a pain! And your face’ss …” The shorter man’s face screws up in concentration, and he ends up with “...unfortun'tely proportioned.”

“Such callous words. You’re a nasty drunk, Zura.”

“Katsura.”

“Zura.”

“Katsura!”

“St’p bickering like n’ old married couple n’ pass it,” slurs Takasugi, gesturing vaguely to the bottle at the centre of the table. The shortest samurai is almost as happily wasted as Zura is, because word around camp says he’s next in line for rank advancement [Zura’s good news is his good news; ‘too young’ is not a factor in a war that needs the vibrancy and the will of youth]. Zura tries to hand the sake to him helpfully, but it slides out of his clumsy fingers, upending and rolling towards Sakamoto, who rights it unevenly. His afro almost seems to perk as he gets an idea.

“Ahaha, hey, lets’ do a toast!” cheers the tallest man, ruffling Takasugi’s hair as he laughs. It’s extremely hard to tell how drunk Sakamoto is since the tallest samurai has no inhibitions for booze to lower.

“To what?” murmurs Takasugi, swatting the big hand banging away on the top of his head. “Victory?”

“That’s been done to death,” dismisses Gintoki. “Aa, it’s a jinx, anyway.”

“Ahahaha, how about a toast to getting lucky tonight?”

“That’s even more of a jinx, idiot!”

“To...Shetland ponies...n’ soft manes.”

“You are _so_ goddamned _drunk._ ”

Sakamoto suddenly rises unsteadily, his face bright with glee. “I know! Hahaha, Katsura, Katsura, you should say something!” Zura blushes, shaking his head bashfully [the blush/smile combination making the irritating feeling in Gintoki’s knees spread to the pit of his stomach]. Sakamoto wheedles and cajoles, and [inebriated as he is], Zura’s no match for the sheer force of the other’s charm.

Somehow, he ends up on Sakamoto’s shoulders. His refilled sake cup sways in his hand, spilling alcohol onto Sakamoto’s bushy hair like rain to an eccentric flowerbed. “Listen up, assholes!” shouts Takasugi, drawing the eyes and ears of every samurai in the bar. “Yer new captain’s got something to say!”

“He does?” murmurs Zura dazedly to the side, and Gintoki snorts into his palm.

“Ahahaha, Katsura! Go on, go on!”

Buoyed on an ocean of sake, Zura clears his throat [instead of kneeing Sakamoto in the chin and escaping, as he probably should]. “Ah, hello,” he announces rather amiably, although his cheeks are still a deep red. Hearing his own strange tone, he seems to make a concerted effort to pull his thoughts together. He coughs again, his other hand bracing on Sakamoto’s head like it’s a podium. As he holds his head up higher and looks more alert, a more respectful hush goes over the bar.

“I just want to say…” he finally says at length, and there’s a solemn pause.

Everyone waits for their captain to speak again, to impart his words of wisdom and fan the flames of victory.

“Amanto really suck.”

Sakamoto laughs so much they both topple backwards onto their table, breaking it in two.

 **#23 – Flexible**  
Takaya is a new recruit. He is, technically, a little too young to fight [but even young ones have debts to repay]. Perhaps he had just been in the right place at the right time but Katsura-san, _the_ Katsura-san, the Daybreak himself- has entrusted the carrying of the next months’ rations list to him. He clutches the rolled-up paper tightly in his fist as he runs through the encampment, holding it close to his body [as if it were a very fragile egg].

The older samurai’s tent is on the farthest edge of the camp, and he pauses outside to catch his breath. The setting sun casts hazy silhouettes of two figures inside the flimsy animal hide, and Takaya cannot repress a shiver; where Katsura-san is, the fearsome Shiroyasha is never very far. The young man cannot fathom why such different people would spend so much time together, and wonders what the real story is behind it all.

When the shadow of the Shiroyasha moves over the prone, lying outline of Katsura-san, Takaya’s free hand twitches to the hilt of his sword [he immediately feels ashamed; the Shiroyasha is _their_ demon, after all- right?]. “Oi oi, don’t give me that dirty look, it won’t hurt,” the Shiroyasha is saying.

Katsura-san’s head seems to twist back over his shoulder. “I don’t know…this is stupid, you’re tired-”

“I’m fine. You need this.”

“I certainly don’t _need_ it-”

“But it’ll feel good. Just shut up for ten seconds, would you?”

The shadows shift, movement happening in the tent. The two figures then blur together [and did the Shiroyasha’s hands just drop to Katsura-san’s waist?].

“Ah,” comes Katsura-san’s voice, sounding pained. “Idiot, that hurts-”

“That’s because you’re too _tight._ I have to stretch the muscles first.”

“Ow, ow, _Gintoki,_ you’re too rough-”

“Nag, nag, nag! What are you, my mother-in-law? Just go with it. I have magic fingers.”

There are a long few moments of silence, and Takaya has found that his entire body is frozen in mortification. He _is_ able to avert his eyes from the tent, and does so, staring at a scattering of rocks just beyond his foot with enough intensity to make them combust.

“- _Oh,_ ” murmurs Katsura-san suddenly. It is not the serious, almost cold tone he has heard the other rattle off orders with. Nor is it the fiery tone in which Katsura-san speaks of freeing Japan.

It’s a disturbingly _pleased_ noise.

“Ah? Ah?” comes the Shiroyasha’s voice again, sounding smug.

“R-right there…”

“Like this?”

The rough moan is short, bitten off, but it echoes in Takaya’s head over and over as he runs straight back through the camp.

Inside the tent, Katsura sighs, face buried in his folded arms. His voice is now quiet, tired but careful [the moan had been embarrassing enough]. “I’m glad I let you talk me into this,” he admits.

Gintoki grunts absently, his hands digging into Katsura’s lower back and kneading hard, and it’s all Katsura can do not to writhe as weeks of heavy lifting and intense fighting melt away.  
One nagging thought keeps the long-haired samurai from relaxing completely, however. “Do you hear anyone out there? I sent someone to bring me the rations list for the next stop...”

“Who did you send?”

“Ah...Takaya-san, the young one recruited at the beginning of the month…”

“ _That_ kid? Why would you send a teenager? Ch, they can barely keep their minds off of sex long enough to swing a sword.”

 **#24 - Hollow**  
It’s only in murmurs that Gintoki hears it outside of battle, in covert whispers when he passes. They are anxiousthrilledscared when he hears them, expressions like kids playing with an Ouija board, terrified and expectant of the demon they seek to invoke. This, he can ignore.

He cannot ignore it after victories, when they chant it, _Shiroyasha, Shiroyasha, Shiroyasha_ , as if he is a beast that has done well. It makes him feel powerful and dangerous; it makes him feel powerless and weak to his own bloodlust and rage.

Even when no one at all utters his namesake, it echoes in his ears, loud and furious when he sharpens his sword and thinks of what they took. As howling as it is then, it is just as soft and poisonous when he is on the edge of sleep, just teetering into a nightmare that is only slightly different from what day-to-day war is like.

_Shiroyasha._

_Shiroyasha._

“ _Gintoki,_ ” calls a clear voice, and it’s like pouring cold, cold water into a steaming hot pot. The whispersmurmurschants fade into the air, just grey vapors and haze and nothing substantial. “Gintoki,” Zura says again, catching up to him. The other samurai adds something, about inns or weather conditions, it doesn’t matter, and he makes an ambiguous noise in response, just to be sure [just to hear it again].

“Gintoki,” chides Zura in a gentle scold [and finally, he remembers who he really is].

 **#25 - Rain**  
It had been a spectacular failure of a battle. The survivors trickle back to camp, the mud beneath their sandals sucking and thick, making the trek back to their comrades long and tiring. Gintoki is one of them, pushing forward purely on adrenaline [there had been so _many_ this time, five more popping up for each one cut down].

He almost does not see the other man. Picking his way slowly through the roots and sludge from the other direction, Katsura’s dark hair and blood soaked clothes blend him into the scenery. When it does register, Gintoki lets out a pained, frantic laugh of relief. He tries to call out, but his voice is shot. Katsura sees him anyway [the rain had washed his hair of blood stains, made it a bright marker in the wood]. When they get close enough, the white-haired man realizes the other is walking with a limp.

“Are you-” croaks Katsura.

“Nothing serious,” Gintoki returns. “Your leg-”

“Twisted ankle, I don’t…think it’s broken.”

“Should be off it and not screwing around in the woods, then-”

“I couldn’t find you,” says Katsura all in a rush, voice unsteady. “I thought-”

“Don’t,” says Gintoki, because it wasn’t supposed to be like this [and Zura’s eyes weren’t supposed to go _dead_ ever again].

 **#26 - Regret**  
They do not go back to camp. In the mud and fog, red eyes meet hazel for only a moment, and then Gintoki is lunging forward, pinning Katsura to a withering oak. The smaller man makes an almost-nothing sound of pain [ _his ankle, he said he hurt his ankle_ ], but buries his face in the other’s neck fiercely, knuckles going white with the force of his hold on Gintoki’s biceps.

Their cold fingers are numb and clumsy, but between the two of them they manage to undo their breastplates. Katsura pulls off his forearm guards with his teeth, the action so _unexpected_ of Zura that it makes Gintoki’s blood burn; the guards fall into the mud alongside the other armor at their feet [all those hard outer barriers unneeded and unwanted here].

 _His ankle,_ thinks Gintoki again, and with that he picks the other up and grips him by the thighs, holding him up against the tree, all his protesting muscles ignored. Katsura wraps his legs around Gintoki’s waist, and blood-splattered kimonos are shucked up high and out of the way. They move together hard and desperate, Katsura’s soft, low moans vibrating against his jaw. Gintoki wants to kiss him but _can’t_ because the stupid inky-black hair is everywhere and Katsura won’t stay _still_ long enough. It’s no loss; it wouldn’t be good now anyway, he reasons in some part of his mind that isn’t completely focused on grinding Zura into the damn bark of the oak [Gintoki doesn’t want to taste fear and regret and foreign blood, he just wants to taste _Zura_ ].

Katsura gets there first, the fingernails of one hand gouging back into the tree for purchase, choking out a _Gintoki_ which sounds so overwhelmed that Gintoki is almost certain that this is the first time Zura has _ever_ come. With that thought Gintoki follows quickly after [his first time with another _person_ ever, and it’s some kind of cosmic joke that the Shiroyasha is as inexperienced as any new recruit just facing down puberty].

For a few moments, the only thing they need to worry about is catching their breath [until Gintoki’s arm muscles finally give out, and they both drop down into the mud, and Katsura squawks like an irritated bird, and Gintoki can’t help but laugh and-

-and maybe, maybe they’ll be okay].

 **#27 – Snakes**  
“People do that?” Zura had asked, somewhere between aghast and baffled. Gintoki had simply nodded [because he didn’t trust himself to say anything and probably blow, pardon the pun, his chances]. Zura had remained unconvinced, insisting that he _knew_ this was all another cruel joke upon his person, like the time they had tried to convince him that women _farted,_ of all things [and sometimes, Gintoki finds it hard to convince himself that he’s not taking advantage of someone with brain damage when they do whatever it is they’re _doing_ now].

It takes stumbling into not one, but _two_ separate whores’ dens and a talk with Sakamoto that leaves the taller samurai laughing so hard he actually vomits before Zura believes that people do, indeed, do that.

“You want to do that to _me?_ ” he’d then demanded, somewhere between disgusted and mortified. Gintoki had then chosen his words very, very carefully [because even in normal conversation, the wrong turn of phrase could become a free ticket to a bony knee in the groin].

“I want whatever you want,” he’d replied stoically, rather proud of his quick evasive maneuvering [especially when his first thought was _No, you idiot, I want **you** to do that to **me** nine times a day and once more for good luck_ ].

As they return from washing the company’s clothes in the river, Gintoki stops mid-rant about the difference between “volunteering” and “volunteering _other people who hate washing_ ” when Zura blurts, hidden behind his stack of drying yukata and kimono, “I want to do that thing people do.”

Gintoki doesn’t drop his pile of significantly less clean clothes [but even if he did, their descent would have been stopped about halfway down].

Although Zura protests that they have garments to hand back out, he doesn’t put up any physical fight as Gintoki drags him straight back to their tent, and that’s good enough for him. “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, samurai are noble spirits, born to be unfettered by trivial, material things, such as clothes,” he rambles, practically tripping over every single root in the entire forest. He tugs Zura along behind him as if they are being chased, practically giving the other man whiplash when he shoves him into the tent. “Speaking of, you should start getting unfettered if we’re gonna do this.” When the shorter man makes no movement but to place his bundle neatly in the corner of the tent, Gintoki takes matters into his own hands, pulling him back by the neck of his kimono. The action loosens it quite conveniently, and he immediately dips his hand beneath the fabric, making Zura arch against him _very_ nicely and cry-

“-Cold hands! Cold hands!”

“What? I’m warming them up.”

“They’re like _ice,_ get _off_ me-”

“Get you off?”

“ _No,_ would you _stop-_ are you even- _damnit Gintoki-_ ” Katsura grates out, and it sets off warning bells in Gintoki’s head, because that is the _damnit Gintoki_ that precedes a powerful uppercut and not the _damnit Gintoki_ that precedes Zura squirming restlessly in his lap. While pissing off Zura is, without a doubt, one of Gintoki’s preferred pastimes, even he can recognize this is absolutely _not_ the time.

He releases the other, but doesn’t give him enough of a pause to get his bearings [this will be a lot less painful for both of them if he keeps the ball rolling]. His strategy of attack is flawless, one he has been working on during long treks from one region to another since the beginning of the damn- well, the time frame doesn’t matter, the point _is_ that he put a lot of effort into being prepared. He knows he’ll have to bite the bullet first, but once he convinces Zura of the great things other people do by way of mind-blowing orgasm, the faster they’ll get to _do_ the great things other people do on a daily basis.

As needed for his plan, Gintoki drops his voice to something he hopes is seductive. “Guess I’m just looking forward to _polishing_ your _katana,_ if you know what I-”

“Ah,” interrupts Zura, somewhere between embarrassed and- no, he’s _just_ embarrassed, the bridge of his nose practically scarlet. “Ah, I thought...I would rather...”

-the pause is painfully long, and _painfully_ awkward-

“...put my mouth on your, ah, you know, than attend to our weaponry.”

The noise of Gintoki’s brain screaming _You are so, so retarded! How have you lived this long, how has someone so retarded lived this long?!_ cannot command even a little of his attention, as his Ah-You-Know is only allowing him to focus on the phrase, “his mouth.”

 _His_ mouth.

His _mouth._

_His mouth._

“-Gintoki?”

“Allsxhk,” says Gintoki [whose plan did not account for _this_ little turn of events].

Zura frowns. “If you don’t want-”

“I want,” replies Gintoki quickly [probably too eagerly]. He doesn’t fully understand why Zura would rather do it this way, but assumes it’s just another one of the other man’s stupid quirks [like why he seems to be okay with having Gintoki’s hand rubbing between his legs but _not_ with letting Gintoki see him completely nude].

Unfortunately, Zura’s expression seems more doubtful now, and Gintoki becomes aware of a little timer starting up, marking the closing window of opportunity. “Too much talking,” he decides abruptly, and pulls the other man in for a hard kiss. His hands brush the green kimono off Zura’s shoulders, exposing that pale scraped and bruised skin, his insistent tongueteethlips not giving the idiot the chance to complain about the temperature of his fingers [honestly, of course his hands are cold, his blood circulation is a little derailed right now].

They kiss deeply for a while, bodies shifting awkwardly in the small tent until they _fit_ right, with Zura lying stretched out on top of him [light as a damn feather, and maybe he should stop stealing the shorter man’s dumplings when he isn’t looking]. When an unhurried pushing of hips begins accompanying the clashing of mouths, the blunt, indirect contact feels perfect, slowly teasing them both into a higher state of arousal. But the thought of how a hand [or a _mouth_ ] would feel, of course, makes it pale in comparison, and the more Gintoki thinks about _that_ , the quicker the lazy slide of their hips goes from feeling just right to just not enough.

It’s a nice surprise when, for once, Zura seems to be on the same page [rather than in an entirely different book, written in another language, and full of upside-down illustrations]. Long, thin fingers begin undoing the ties of his pants without even being prompted, and Gintoki lifts his legs and wriggles [like a particularly energetic salmon] to kick them off.

While it’s mildly alarming to realize Zura is giving the same look to Gintoki’s crotch that he gives to the wooden practice targets he drills arrows into with pinpoint accuracy, Gintoki can appreciate the focus. He can also appreciate the way Zura’s kimono is pooling around his waist, and how mussed and messy the dark hair looks from running his fingers through it. By far the best part, however, is the high, desirous flush on Zura’s face, and the constant contact, fervent and _wordless-_

“Okay, I’m going to do it now,” intones the other man suddenly, so severe and serious that Gintoki actually winces [arrows rapidly thwacking into the dead centre of the, uh, wood, _thwunkthwunkthwunk_ ]. “Stop moving around.”

“We...need to work on your dirty talking,” grumbles Gintoki, running a hand through his perm. This will take patience, yes, patience he does not have. “Or maybe not talking at all?”

Zura frowns. “I didn’t think you could talk when, ah, because of your teeth-”

Hand flapping frantically, Gintoki cuts him off with a strangled noise before Zura can deliver a one-hit kill to his sex drive. “No! Shut up! Just follow the rules of the civilized table! It’s impolite to talk with your mouth full! We don’t need to get into specific mechanics of why!”

“Don’t shout at me.”

“I’m not shouting at you! _I’m just shouting!_ ”

The frustrated exhale of breath is the only warning Gintoki has before Zura’s mouth crushes against his, kiss almost brutal in intensity. When he pulls back again, the other samurai looks decisive, if embarrassed. “...Relax,” he murmurs, which is so ironic coming from _Zura_ of all people it’s almost obnoxious. Hesitant hands then skim up and down Gintoki’s thighs, becoming bolder with each sweep [and maybe this won’t take as much patience as he thought].

When Zura shifts, bends down low to follow the trailing of his fingers with his lips, his hair slides off his shoulders and onto Gintoki’s belly. The white-haired man smirks lazily, almost lewdly [oh, he likes how it looks there].

The brushing of lips turns into light scrapes of teeth, which become gentle bites, and by the time the other samurai makes it down to the juncture of hip and thigh, Gintoki is almost uncomfortably aroused.

“So, are you gonna go ahead and, because that would be really nice right about-”

“Y-yes. Be quiet.” He’s certain [mostly certain] that the idiot doesn’t know his breath is puffing across somewhere pretty sensitive to drafts. But then his focus narrows _drastically_ when he feels a hesitant lick to the head of his erection. Two, three, four more wet swipes, each longer than the last, have his whole spine tensing.

“Ngh,” he blurts, and Zura looks up at him, hand wrapping around the base of the straining flesh as he licks his lips [he’s not trying to be sexy, Gintoki knows, Zura wouldn’t know _how_ to try to be sexy- which somehow makes it even _sexier_ ]. The other man bows his head, slipping his mouth down, past the head and down the hard ridge, and Gintoki lets out a harsh breath. He can scarcely believe this is even happening, and his hand twitches, finally settling on the back of Zura’s head [lightly, as if wary of spooking the other].

And oh, it’s good. It’s a little unsure, just the other side of clumsy, but it’s tightwethot, it’s the best _fucking_ thing Gintoki has ever felt in his life [even better than a soak in a hot spring after a hard battle or a long piss after downing a whole bottle of sake]. It looks just as erotic as it feels; the messy hair, the rumpled kimono, the swollen mouth- it’s an unfathomably dirty pin-up come to life. “Zura,” he groans, hips jerking as he feels all of Zura’s experimentations; that small, quick little tongue lapping at the underside of his cock, then dragging up slowly back to the head, the fingers around him squeezing and stroking. It’s heaven and hell and he never wants it to end. He’s only dimly aware that his mouth has been moving, mumbling profanity and nonsense. “Oh shit, oh, yeah, god _damn_ … Zura…like that, just, uhhn, oh-”

“Oh _shit-!_ ”

“Goddamn, I know, right?- Uhnn, mm.”

The wonderful, wonderful slide of Zura’s lips stops abruptly, freezing in place with a pleasing suction which feels amazing enough that it takes far too many more seconds for Gintoki to realize it hadn’t been his voice, or Zura’s voice, that had contributed just then.

“Ahahahahaha?” offers Sakamoto vacantly, who seems to be completely paralyzed at their tent flaps. Zura is suddenly moving away from Gintoki as if the white-haired samurai had been cursed with leprosy on top of the perm.

“ _Get the fuck out!_ ” snaps Gintoki, not even daring to look over at Zura, who is going to be cycling from embarrassment to suicide to rage as soon as the horror wears off.

“Ahahahahaha?” the tallest samurai responds, his idiotic mug completely frozen in a grin or grimace . “Gintoki had a snake bite, right? It must have been a snake bite.”

“ _ARE YOU DEAF IN ADDITION TO BEING STUPID? I SAID GET THE FUCK OUT-_ ”

“Katsura was sucking the poison out. Ahahahahha. Right? What a good friend. Ahahaha. Hahaha.”

“ _ **SAKAMOTO-**_ ”

“Well, ahahaha, I need to go walk to the nearest village and make out with every woman there, so I’ll just be going-”

“Oh my god,” moans Zura, small and traumatized. “ _Oh my god. Seppuku. Seppuku. Cut off my head._ ”

“Nobody’s getting head, ahahaha, it’s just a snake bite, ahahaha, wow-”

After he chases the idiot halfway across their encampment, he comes back to find Zura has drawn his sword and has given him the option of going to sleep outside, or going to sleep forever.

“Let me in! _I could get bitten by a fucking snake!_ ” Gintoki shouts.

 **#28 - Water**  
It takes a few weeks for him to realize that Zura never kisses him first. It’s a stupid thing to think about, but once Gintoki’s _conscious_ of the fact he can’t let it go. From then on, it returns to gnaw at it in his mind every time they twine together in the dark of an inn, hands wandering [mindful of new stitches, of healing wounds and tender bruises]. It still surprises the hell out of Gintoki when Zura initiates the first touch, be it light fingertips lingering on his wrist or a distinctly more x-rated touch below the belt as the inn-room door closes behind them.

Perhaps that surprise is what kept him from noticing that it’s always _him_ who closes the space between their lips, him who leans down, hands cupping that willful jaw line or tangling themselves into night-black hair.

When weeks turn into months, Gintoki doesn’t quite forget about it, but he stops caring [as long as he isn’t turned away, as long as his kiss is allowed, he’ll drink in Zura in whatever ways he can].

 **#29 – Green**  
No one in the company seems to want to make eye-contact with him, the first day Sakamoto’s laughter is absent from the rank and file. While they are dismantling their tent to move under the cover of darkness to the next safe encampment, he says as much to Gintoki. The white-haired samurai snorts, reaching over and pushing Katsura’s hachimaki into his eyes. “No shit, nobody can make eye contact with you,” mumbles the other man, sounding somewhere between irritated and uninterested. “You’ve been staring at the damn sky all day.”

It sinks in for Katsura, then, that he can’t recall anything about today but the pale purple dawn and the gray-blue, rainy season skies of the afternoon. Before the cloth of his headband had obscured his sight, he’d been looking at the navy solitude of the evening blue as he spoke.

When he pushes his hachimaki up out of his eyes, it is at Gintoki he looks, who is struggling with the hide of the tent. “I...” he starts, but has no idea what he wants to say. He’s happy that Sakamoto has found something he believes in, certainly does not begrudge him his decision to fight in his own way. Although he misses him already, privately and somberly, he knows that isn’t what his mind has been trying to come to grips with, either.

A frustrated grunt snaps him out of his thoughts, and he watches blankly as Gintoki simply kicks down their tent, trampling it flat. Then silence hangs between them in the clearing, oppressive and confusing.

Katsura frowns, feeling as if he has done something wrong, but isn’t sure what. “Gintoki-” he tries again.

“Don’t be envious of him,” Gintoki suddenly snaps, cutting him off [voice sharp and alert, like it is in battle], “just because he got out of the shit we’re knee-deep in.” The deep red eyes that turn on him are fierce and focused. “Don’t doubt yourself or act like a hopeless coward. You belong with-” he stops, running a hand through his hair and dropping his head.

When he looks back up, the fire is gone from his eyes. “You belong here,” he finishes, sounding tired.

[The near miss raises too many questions, so they roll up the tent in silence.]

 **#30 – Winter**  
Little supplies dwindle to no supplies as sure as the season withers. The company moves quickly, now, too quickly- they have no time to sleep, no time to burn their dead. Even though they have run out of food and they have run out of time, there seems to be an unending amount of strife to go around. Still, they trudge on and on [and their sandal thongs dig deeper into the bloody grooves rendered in their feet].

It has taken days to shake off their pursuers, days that seem like weeks and leave a taste like cowardice in all their mouths. It’s the sensible thing to do; they don’t have the strength or manpower to battle that persistent force yet [but pride has rarely, if ever, been a sentiment ruled by reason]. Gintoki finds Katsura sitting in the frozen dirt next to a stream, his back curled over, sword tucked tight to his side. The taller samurai snaps twigs underfoot as he approaches, tramples every crinkling leaf [everyone is high strung, and warnings come few].

Zura doesn’t talk much these days, so he doesn’t greet Gintoki as he comes up beside him. His eyes flicker briefly over in acknowledgement [but he looks through him instead of at him, and it makes Gintoki’s temper snap like piano wire]. “Get up,” he hisses at the other man, grabbing his forearm [Zura didn’t belong in the dirt, Zura was the purest of them all, and he was _better_ than that]. Although he tries not to take the resulting flinch personally, he yanks the other man to his feet with more force than he’d intended. “We’re sparring,” he spits.

When the shorter man shakes his head, Gintoki ignores him, throwing his sword to the ground beside them [maybe it would have been different if he’d said something, said _anything,_ but it’s as if Zura’s vocal cords are constricted with ice]. Katsura haltingly follows suit, and his scabbard has barely hit the grass before Gintoki takes the first lunge, a fast punch.

As unresponsive as he’s been, Zura’s autopilot still doesn’t disappoint; he skillfully dodges the wild throw, rolling his weight in such a way that the foot coming around to slam into Gintoki’s chest is nothing but natural progression. The white-haired samurai stumbles back only for a moment, trying to narrow his focus enough to beat Zura’s agility [drawing on the frustration that prickles underneath his skin, and the infuriating _silence_ ].

Eventually, the sheer force of the constant onslaught overwhelms Zura just enough for Gintoki to get past the alarmingly swift reflexes, and he manages to get the other in a headlock. His skin is cold to the touch, the sharp line of his jaw digging into Gintoki’s forearm a freezing jab of bone. When thin fingers wrap around his arm, jagged nails biting, he thinks of icicles.

A noise escapes on the end of a puff of air that lingers in front of them, and the taller man panics for a moment [he’s breathing cold, he’s breathing cold, it’s too late]. Reality finally picks up the slack when Zura coughs softly, “Hurting me.” Only then does he realize just _how_ tightly his arm had been wrapped around Zura’s neck, and [half-relieved, half-ashamed] he lets go. Before the other man can distance himself, Gintoki pulls him into his arms, not letting go until he can feel some evidence of warmth in the other man’s body.

The winter inside Zura is getting so much fiercer [but he’s going to thaw it, he’s going to melt it away, with his own hot blood if he needs to].

 **#31 - Hope**  
It will be the last battle. The thought weighs heavy on every mind and every sword. Gintoki and Katsura stand atop the last hill to be crossed, and Gintoki is doing his damndest to concentrate on the puffy white clouds above [rather than the black, oncoming carnage below].

“That one looks like my hair,” he mutters out of something like habit [he doesn’t really expect Zura to smile anymore, it’s an almost impossible task].

Katsura is looking straight down the rolling grass, into the shuffling ranks of samurai, his expression tight. “It’s not going to be enough,” he murmurs, a ghost of a breath. Gintoki sighs, because he should have known better. He makes one last ditch attempt to keep them from the moment he knows is coming.

“Aa, and that one looks like-”

“Gintoki, shut up,” interrupts Zura, who is turning those honest cry-for-the-world eyes on Gintoki now, as expected. What the taller samurai _doesn’t_ expect is for the other to set aside his invincible personal bubble so freely, to step close enough to Gintoki that he can smell this morning’s meager breakfast on his breath. “If, that is...I just want-” Katsura cuts himself off, shaking his head. Then, it is _he_ that leans up, lips brushing chapped and nervous over Gintoki’s, and Gintoki-

-looks away.

Honest eyes are lowered, but Gintoki grips the other’s wrist, over a worn forearm guard. “After the fight,” he says, because he does not intend to die today [and even if Zura isn’t so convinced, he has hope in tomorrow].

 **#32 – Lost**  
Zura won’t stop babbling, his words slurred and tripping over themselves [tumbling down like foolish, foolish samurai, all in a row]. Next to Gintoki’s ear, his breath is ragged, panting out, “I can walk, put _me_ down, dow-nn, I canstill, Gintoki, I need to fightdon’tyouunderstand _Gin_ -toki, it’s not over, for SenseiGintokiandJapan, we have to kuh-eep fightingput me down, it’s not _over_ -” and Gintoki feels like screaming just so he doesn’t have to listen to the blood-loss delirium.

He doesn’t know a lot of things. He doesn’t know what happens, now that they’ve lost. He doesn’t know who is left alive, and who has been slaughtered. He doesn’t know if this war mattered. He doesn’t know if Zura’s going bleed out all down his back in a slick, hot trail of yearning and loss.

But he knows it _is_ over, and he knows he can’t [won’t] live like this anymore.  



	2. (here is the root of the root)  [II]

**#33 – Foot**  
Old widows’ food tastes too much like isolation and a cold gravestone does not a warm meal make, so he allows Zura to take him out for dinner. Although it’s far from the disastrous first time they’d met after the war’s end [with Gintoki so raw and Zura so _desperate_ ], Gintoki still feels clumsy with his words, as if the wrong string of phrases will start something he can’t finish.

It’s easy to let the mild lecture wash over him as he wolfs down the noodles, because Zura’s just nagging for the sake of nagging, but it’s less easy to ignore the worried look in the other’s eyes. He knows he’s thin these days, dirty and directionless, and the other man probably has a right to be worried [but he was never able to handle Zura’s poorly-hidden concern even _before_ the smoke had cleared].

When the other lowers his too-open eyes to his green tea, Gintoki tries not to breathe a sigh of relief, and tunes back in.

“-of yourself, it’s short-sighted to keep going as you are,” the shorter man is murmuring, pressing the teacup to his lips. Gintoki hasn’t forgotten the feel of those lips pressing against his thighs, or opening in a gasp under his mouth, or curling up into a shy _sly_ smile, and feels a sudden, frantic need to clarify what the hell they think they’re doing anymore.

He wants to say, _It wasn’t just the war, it was never about the stupid war._

He wants to say, _I don’t regret leaving, but I regret leaving you behind._

He wants to say, _Does anyone make you laugh like I used to?_

But that foot, that goddamned _foot_ in his mouth stops anything coherent from getting out, and the most he can get around it is a garbled, “Do you want to get a room?” which isn’t what he meant to say at _all_ and the frustration is enough to make him want to _scream._

Zura looks taken aback, but it only lasts a moment before a deadpan expression settles on his face. “I want you to get a job,” he replies serenely. A surprised bark of laughter bursts out of Gintoki [and Zura lifts the teacup much, much too slowly to hide the soft smile, which answers Gintoki’s question, at least].

“Maybe I will,” he concedes as he meets the other’s pleased eyes, realizing putting them back together again will not be as hard as he thought [and he wonders how long Zura has been patiently waiting for Gintoki to piece _himself_ together enough to understand].

 **#34 - Wood**  
Shinpachi is beside himself at the presentation of the huge package of beef. “W-wow, Katsura-san, you didn’t have to go through the trouble!”

“Ah...It was no trouble, Shinpachi-san. It’s too much for just Elizabeth and I…” Seating himself at the kotatsu, Zura nods modestly, and Gintoki almost rolls his eyes. Zura’s definitely practiced that.

“Well it looks really good, thank you-”

“Shinpachi,” interrupts Gintoki, sticking a finger in his ear and twisting it. The wax is bad this autumn. “You should never accept strange gifts. Remember the Trojan horse? Maybe this is Trojan meat. Ask him where he got it.”

“Gin-san! That’s rude!”

“Zura-”

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura-”

“-where’d you get the meat? Aa? Aa?”

The beef is dumped into the hot pot and begins sizzling away, without any sign of anything strange [or any other sizzling sounds, like that of, oh, say, a fuse being lit]. 

Zura is nonplussed as he answers, “The butcher’s shop.”

Despite himself, Shinpachi looks a little relieved, bringing the teapot over and filling four cups. Kagura is expected back after taking Sadaharu out to pee. “You went to the butcher’s shop, Katsura-san? Which one? For this amount and the price of beef nowadays, you must have gotten a very good deal-”

“It was free,” says Zura dully. 

Shinpachi blinks. “Uh-”

“ _Trojan meat!_ ” yells Gintoki, slamming an open hand on the table. It jimmies Zura’s stupid, cool exterior off in a heartbeat.

“It’s not Trojan meat, you asshole!” the long haired man snaps. “A member of the Joui owns the butcher’s shop! He has been giving out free meat to the other members!”

Just when the normality of the statement has sunken in, Zura adds, “He needed to make room for the gelignite.”

“ _WHAT-_ ”

The door bangs open in its frame, and Kagura comes in, shedding her fall coat to the floor. “Gin-chan, Sadaharu peed a long time, yup. It was a whole river, yup.”

“May we all aspire to such great feats,” responds Gintoki flatly, finger still working in his ear. “We’re about to eat, sit down and pipe d-”

Kagura has already emptied the entire hot pot into her bowl. Shinpachi hollers at Kagura, who hollers at Gintoki, who hollers at both of them, and Katsura internally hollers at himself for not just getting soba with Elizabeth.

By the time everyone has calmed down [and the meat is shared more evenly], Gintoki has formally disowned everyone at the table [and Sadaharu, who is not at the table, but poops on his futon, and doesn’t deserve to be in the Sakata family in the first place for having such reckless bowels].

 **#35 – Poison**  
It seems as if the food is enough to shut everyone up, and for _half a minute_ the Yorozuya thinks maybe Zura isn’t so useless, and maybe Kagura isn’t so obnoxious, and maybe Shinpachi isn’t so awkward. It’s a good half of a minute, definitely one of the better he’s enjoyed, but he can hardly start truly _appreciating_ it before the damn gorilla-girl opens her beef-stuffed mouth and sprays towards the wighead, “Oi, Zura, how do you get a boyfriend?”

Shinpachi swallows an entire piece of un-chewed beef, which lodges in his throat. Although he starts choking, nobody notices.

Zura’s expression is a mixture of horrified and bewildered. “It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura. Why… do you think I should know?”

“Well, I asked the grandma-hag downstairs, and she said I shouldn’t bother, that men are all liars and cheats who’ll take advantage of you, yup.”

“She’s right,” nods Gintoki, stroking his chin and closing his eyes in great wisdom. “Men are pure evil and think only with their sausages, Kagura! Stay away from them.”

“She also said that they’ll never give you a dime, ahuh, and that the ones overdue on their rent are the worst of them all.”

“Ch, I can’t be blamed for my gender’s faults.”

“ _Gghhhhk!_ ”

“Shinpachi, stop waving your arms like that. We can still see you. Ah, these kids today, Zura, they need so much attention...”

“I asked the boss too, she said men are creepy and perverted and that I should kick anybody who wants to be my boyfriend in the balls until they don’t got any balls anymore, yup.”

“That...er, that seems a little… harsh,” coughs Zura, shifting [just like Gintoki is, just like convulsing Shinpachi is; even Sadaharu crosses his legs].

Kagura shrugs, taking Shinpachi’s rice. He looks like he might suffocate so he probably won’t want any more. Two bright blue eyes train back on Zura. “You have the longest hair of anybody I know, so you’re almost like a girl, yup. How do I get a boyfriend?”

Enough is enough, and Gintoki slams his open hand on the kotatsu again. “ _No boyfriends until you are married!_ Do you think I will let you become a teenage pregnancy statistic, Kagura? Do you think I will let you grow up in a trailer with eighteen babies clinging to your dirty kimono?”

“Do you have to do that?” says Zura pointedly.

Gintoki blinks, his tirade derailed. “Do what?”

“Hit the table when you’re making a point.”

“It’s pretty annoying, ahuh,” Kagura agrees, nodding as she shovels Shinpachi’s rice into her mouth. She hits Shinpachi to make her point, and a chunk of meat flies from Shinpachi’s mouth and splats on the wall behind Zura’s head.

Gintoki hits the table three more times. “I can hit anything I want to make a point! _Respect the head of the household!_ ”

“You disowned all of us,” gasps Shinpachi, voice haggard. “Nobody has to listen to you.”

“ _Damnit-_ ”

“Ah, he’s right, Gintoki.”

“Ah, _nobody asked you,_ Zura!”

“I asked him! _I asked him how to get a boyfriend!_ ”

“Kagura,” wheezes Shinpachi, taking off his glasses and wiping his eyes. “You’re not allowed to date. Who do you want to be your boyfriend, anyway?”

The Yato girl picks her nose with her chopsticks before shrugging. “That stupid Okita guy. He’s pretty ugly and everything but he fights good. So I need to figure out how to make him my boyfriend so he only fights with _me._ ”

There is a heavy silence.

“Poison,” says Zura, looking intent. A small, terrifying smile is on his face. “Feed him some poison every day. He will think he is sick with love for you and confess his undying devotion.”

While Shinpachi squawks with indignation and Kagura asks where the poison-store is, Gintoki just stares down at the beef on his plate, and starts laughing nervously.

 **#36 – Flying**  
At all times, Katsura is conscious of what he represents to the Joui, and that he is a symbol first and a person second. When they touch their foreheads to the ground in front of him, he does not let his embarrassment show; he looks coolly down at them, acknowledging their respect with the barest nod of his head. He is refined, he is passionate. He is whatever they need him to be, and what Japan needs him to be.

Away from the awed eyes of the Jouishishi, he occasionally forgets not to talk with his mouth full. He rambles about how much he _hates_ the Rainbow Road level in Mario Kart, and how the creators of such a level should be beheaded. Sometimes he chuckles at dirty jokes, and sometimes he doesn’t wear his sandals when he takes a walk by the river.

Always, when the symbol crumbles off entirely, revealing what’s actually underneath, he is with Gintoki. This has not escaped his notice. And it doesn’t feel like flying, it doesn’t feel like coming home, it isn’t like any of that nonsense. 

It’s just exactly what it is [and exactly who they are].

 **#37 – Metal**  
Never once has Gintoki regretted trading in a sleek, dangerous blade for a piece of clunky wood from a tourist trap. To carry a katana with him now would be to carry the responsibility of judgment [who deserves to live, who deserves to be cut down]. While it’s true that he protects what is in front of him, a wooden sword is shorter than a katana, its reach [and verdict] dulled. He doesn’t carry a blade because he’s finished with retribution [he left the only sword he’d ever carried, _Sensei’s_ sword, rammed into the earth of some godforsaken battlefield].

But none of that matters, none of it, when some blind fucking asshole, scenting the air like a fucking _snake,_ presses black hair as familiar as the backs of the Yorozuya’s hands against his cheekslipsnose. 

It is then the Gintoki wants nothing more and nothing less than unforgiving steel.

He wants hot blood pouring down his blade, he wants to stab and gut and hack. He wants to slice that son of a fucking bitch’s neck clean in two because the right way to kill a _fucking snake_ is to cut off the head and watch the useless body _writhe._

[The Shiroyasha woke up that night, hungry and expectant, and it is not until he is climbing out of the sea foam and watching that stupid, stupid wighead barf up saltwater that it’s eyes slit closed again.]

 **#38 - New**  
When Gintoki is caught staring a third time, Zura lets out a heavy sigh. “Stop it,” he states primly, taking another piece of beef from the hot pot on the table between them. His attention is then turned firmly back to the television drama, which is fine by Gintoki, who needs more time to stare. 

_It’s short,_ he keeps thinking inanely [unable to decide if that’s the good part or the bad part]. The feathery, uneven ends just brush the fair nape of his exposed neck, and the white-haired man feels like some kind of voyeur looking at it [so driven to distraction he half-burns his fingers on the pot].

Zura’s still watching TV when he snaps, his mouth full of noodles he would not dare to speak around were anybody else in the room, “I’m growing it back out.”

And of course he’s growing it back out, Zura’s always been obsessed with how things were in the past [but right now, it’s a clean break from what was, it’s _short_ ]. 

**#39 – Peace**  
Katsura’s latest home is small, lit by pale, filtered sunlight during the day, and with candles and an old lantern at night. It is apart from the main drag, tucked away in a street too narrow for even a wide rickshaw to pass. It couldn’t be any more different than the bright colours and noise of the Yorozuya.

“It’s too gloomy and depressing, like you,” Gintoki had snorted at first, when ten minutes had gone by without someone yelling or the sound of something breaking. But the quiet, melancholic peace had grown on him. Zura is more relaxed at his home, knowing they will not be disturbed [probably a large part of _why_ the dingy place had grown on Gintoki; getting the idiot fully naked at the Yorozuya is _nothing_ short of an absolute miracle]. 

They are stealing this afternoon from the demands in their life. Things had started out heated but cooled off halfway-through undressing, when a mutual laziness had them bypass the sweaty grappling and go straight to the afterglow of lazing together. Now, Zura’s fingers are dipping strange patterns along his chest and shoulders, and it takes a few moments for Gintoki to realize the other man is tracing his scars. 

“I remember this,” Zura murmurs to his ribcage, fingertip trailing to a twisting net of scar tissue on his abdomen. It’s from the war, and it has to be the combined effect of a sedate, almost-nude Zura and this damn drowsy house, but he can remember, too- _without_ cringing and wanting to change the subject. He still isn’t quite sure what to say, though, unused to ignoring [fleeing from] those memories. It ends up not mattering, as the black pool of hair on his chest adds, “I thought you would never shut up when they stitched it,” and Gintoki snorts an incredulous laugh.

“They did a crappy job! I was in pain!”

“And everyone heard about it for two weeks. And then another two weeks, when you ripped the stitches because you ate too much seafood and had such bad diarr-”

“ _What is this?_ Humiliate Gin-chan Comedy Hour?”

Lips curve into a smile against his collarbone, then trail to a scar on his shoulder. “This one is new. Housen? Yoshiwara?”

“-Sadaharu. Bath time.”

Zura does not even attempt to hide the snicker and Gintoki considers pushing him onto the floor [but then those fingers would stop exploring the territory of his skin, turning bad land good again].

 **#40 - Pretty**  
Although the water could be hotter, and the obnoxious seaweed-and-fish plastic curtains a little less transparent, Katsura is grateful for the shower. He tries to convince himself that it was extremely lucky that he’d fallen off the roof into what he had; tumbling headfirst into a pile of rocks, or hammers, or doujinka would have been much more painful. 

Still, the positive thinking doesn’t really take any effect until the llama-dung smell has begun to fade.

Hearing voices out in the main room of the Yorozuya doesn’t concern him; it is always noisy. The footsteps don’t concern him either; after all, it is a small flat, it stands to reason he would hear them so close. The crescendo of shouting that erupts as these footsteps come closer goes by completely unnoticed.

It is not until both the door and the shower curtain are opened and he has looked over his shoulder to find Captain Sougo Okita staring him in the face, that Katsura realizes that maybe he should have just rinsed instead of rinsing and repeating.

“Excuse me miss,” says the Captain dully after an inexcusably long pause, in which Sougo’s eyes are not on the samurai’s face.

There is another lengthy silence, and just when Katsura figures out the perfect trajectory to throw the razor on the sink in order to hit the bastard’s jugular, Sougo adds, “Well, I guess I’ll just pee out the kitchen window. Have a good day, miss.”

Later, Gintoki wisely does not mention the thumbs-up the Shisengumi had given him on his way out.

 **#41 - Snow**  
“I’m going to send that gorilla-girl back to the jungle,” he moans piteously. His face feels crusty with snot and hotly bloated with fever. Zura’s face, pointed down towards his book, looks pale and cool to the touch and totally, wonderfully booger-free. 

Gintoki hates him.

“She did not force you to stay out in the snow with her,” replies the other samurai vaguely, turning a page.

“Yes she did! She held my arm behind my back in a chicken-wing and said it would be a shame to break a good snowball-throwing arm!”

“Ah.”

“Not ‘ah!’ That wasn’t a comment that you say ‘ah’ to! That was a comment you gasp theatrically to and bemoan my terrible, terrible fate!” Gintoki explodes. He wishes he hadn’t immediately after, as it makes his head throb.

Zura, the _asshole,_ doesn’t even look up after all that effort, murmuring in a monotone, “Your life is very hard. No one understands you. You will die alone and unloved.”

“My life _is_ very hard! No one _does_ understand me! I probably _will_ die alone and un- _oi oi oiii, you shit, that one was totally uncalled for!_ ”

“Hn.”

“Are you smirking? Is that a _smirk?_ Are you smirking at my distress? Are you that cold, Zura? _Is that or is that not a smirk?_ ”

It _is_ a smirk, the Katsura-Kotarou-minute-facial-spasm-version of a smirk, but a smirk nonetheless, and oh, Gintoki hates him _even more._ When Zura looks up, the twitching of his mouth is not quite hidden. “You are awfully energetic for someone who has claimed to be dying.”

“I’ve decided I’m no longer giving you the satisfaction, you smirking bastard. Can I touch your face?”

“No.”

 **#42 – Strange**  
They only talk about _it_ once.

“I don’t-”

“Me either. I mean, ah, it sounds-”

“I know!”

“-uncomfortable...”

“Sakamoto sent me a video-”

“I’m not watching that idiot’s trash.”

“Well you don’t have enough-”

“You don’t have enough _dignity!_ ”

“-holes...”

“Just _shut up-_ ”

“So do you want to-”

“ _No!_ ”

“I didn’t mean the video!”

“Oh.”

“...so-”

“I- I- have a revolution to-”

“ _Revolution, revolution, you always have a revolution!_ ”

 **#43 - Taboo**  
They’re always speaking at cross-purposes, so it doesn’t make sense to try and talk it out again. They attempt to talk with their bodies, instead.

It starts out well enough; lying on the Yorozuya’s futon, they kiss warmly, slowly, Gintoki’s fingers slipping up along that pale neck, deep into inky black hair and saying _want._ Katsura’s hand presses firmly at the small of the other’s back, agreeing, urging on.

Unfortunately, Gintoki’s body then says _I’m hungry,_ because Kagura ate both his breakfast and his lunch, and Katsura’s body replies _ow, ow, I hate the Shisengumi, ow,_ because he sprained his wrist escaping the law earlier in the week.

They break apart with a similar, intense look. “Just do it,” murmurs Katsura.

Ten minutes later, Gintoki falls back on the futon, sated.

The black haired man is sitting up, leaning against a small stack of pillows and icing his wrist. A doujinshi is balanced between his knees. “They make it look so easy,” he mutters, flicking the page.

Gintoki finishes his dumpling, licking leftover soy from his fingers. “Right? Right?”

 **#44 - Old**  
He would have liked to have been married, probably. Katsura thinks of this in the same way one might think, ‘I would have liked to take violin lessons.’ 

There is an occasional dull pang of regret when he sees a couple who looks truly happy, every note corresponding to the piece. Though he tries not to think about it, there is also when he’s alone in his futon, feeling unbearably hot, and he just _wishes_ he had someone to make- music, with. More prominent than that is a strange feeling of melancholy, not _quite_ loneliness, when everyone seems to be a part of the orchestra but him [laced with guilt, because it feels like betrayal to the dedication he has given his cause, and it is silly to pine for that which is not necessary].

But the remorse, the idle speculation of _if things had been different,_ it never lasts long [he’s not a musician at heart, after all]. 

He doubts Gintoki has these moments, no matter what the paahead says about the weather girl, so he doesn’t mention them. It all seems unimportant, and the plunky, simple theme song coming from Gintoki’s television [the white hair curling against his neck, the other’s even, dozing breath], is enough.

 **#45 – Spring**  
He snorts awake as he hears the window crack against the pane, but doesn’t bother removing this week’s issue of Jump from his face [because only one person ever enters through the damn window]. “Oi, Zura, go home, I don’t remember putting a sign outside that said ‘Terrorists Welcome Here, Free Cake’-” he starts lazily, but then lets out a muffled _hoomf_ instead as 125 pounds of samurai land heavily on his lap. 

“What the hell-” he blurts, but he’s cut off _again,_ because a hand is smashing Naruto’s latest adventures into his face for balance while another is deftly undoing his belt. There’s some awkward struggling [a small frustrated noise], and Gintoki blindly reaches out, pushing up the fabric of a worn and familiar kimono just as his black trousers are yanked impatiently down his thighs.

The book finally falls from his face [only because the hand relocates to his shoulder], and Zura is flush with adrenaline from the chase, looking wild and determined. He barely has time to hold onto the arm of the couch before Zura straddles him and starts to move, bowing low into the contact with a full, throaty groan that goes straight to the Yorozuya’s groin.

“Sometimes I want to send the Shisengumi a fruit basket,” he mumbles dazedly.

“Shut up,” the rebel breathes. When Zura throws one long leg over the back of the couch and fumbles a spit-slicked hand to guide Gintoki between his own legs, Gintoki stops thinking about whether he should try and kick his Jump to a safer spot, or if Gori-san would prefer bananas or coconuts in his basket.

When all is said and done [twice, _twice!_ ], Katsura is already back on his feet and straightening out his kimono before Gintoki has remembered that lungs are for breathing. Looking over at the other man, finger-combing mussed hair that sticks to his forehead [and makes the Yorozuya idly wish for the energy to have a third go], Gintoki has to put great effort into making his mouth work. “Tch, I guess if you _want_ to get some lunch, and if you’re paying-”

“Busy,” Katsura says shortly. He stoops briefly to pull up his sock, and then disappears out the door, long hair swinging. Gintoki thinks about prying himself from the mold he’s made between the springs of the couch, or maybe pulling his pants up, but decides it’s far too much effort. He tries to feel used, he really does, but he can't manage to stop grinning long enough.

Shinpachi is scarred for life when he finds him in this exact pose fifteen minutes later, but that’s certainly not Gintoki’s fault [it’s these damn terrorists today].

 **#46 - Stable**  
The fingers running through his hair are hypnotizing him, putting him into a lazy, comfortable trance. The lakeside is deserted, the patch of grass Zura had found secluded to all but the water by thick weeds and climbing flowers [the enclave reminding him of all the great hiding spots they’d shared as children, the comfort seeping deep in his bones allowing him to recall the dojo before the flames]. The birds trill quietly, signaling the sunset that will begin painting the sky any moment now.

It all seems too surreal when he thinks about it, so he just doesn’t, letting Zura’s sword-calloused fingers sift through his hair in abstract patterns. But the restlessness within him just has to ask- to _order_ an answer, because this isn’t some silly shoujo manga, “What are you thinking about.”

Zura gives a small, rather absent smile as he looks down at his lapful of Yorozuya. In a voice as soft as early summer evenings, he replies, “Do you think fish have birthday parties?”

Both content that this is real and resisting the urge to find a piece of driftwood to beat himself over the head with, Gintoki goes back to not thinking about it.

 **#47 – Summer**  
“Let’s go over this one more time,” says Gintoki, who feels like punching several people in the face, cheery festival air around him be _damned._

“Alright,” nods Zura blankly.

“I said, ‘Kagura wants to go to the stupid festival.’”

“That is correct.”

“And you said, ‘You should accompany her.’”

“She could get stolen. She is only a little girl.”

“No. _No._ She’s a wrecking crew that only _looks_ like a little girl. But that’s beside the point, shut up.”

“Ah.”

“I said, ‘Yeah, maybe.’”

“Right.”

“And then you said, ‘I will see you there.’”

“...Yes. I did say that. And?”

Gintoki now feels like pulling his own hair out, but has a feeling it would only grow back thicker and more vicious. “I thought you meant-” he makes a vague, helpless gesture in the air between them, and rambles on a bit frantically, “-you know, like that filler summer episode in every anime where the boy and the girl bump into each other at the festival and eat colourful dango and the boy wins the girl a goldfish.”

“Am I the goldfish?”

“What? _No,_ you’re- _why would you think you’re the goldfish?_ No, nevermind, just- shut up. You’re the girl. You’re the girl because you have stupid hair, and you suck at the goldfish game anyway.”

“I don’t want a goldfish,” says Zura, expression becoming more and more confused. “You cannot pet them, they die in a week, and I hate their stringy poo.”

“ _I’m not going to win you a goddamn goldfish!_ ”

Zura still looks lost, but nods. “Good. Thank you.”

Trying not to bite off his own tongue with frustration [or maybe Zura’s tongue, just so he would never have to hear the other’s moronic comments _ever again_ ], the taller samurai counts to ten. He gets to two before bursting, “ _Why wouldn’t you mention you’d be dressed like a narwhale?_ ”

“Noriaki-chaaan!” cheers the third small child in as many minutes, running up to them. Zura puts up a peace sign, intoning dully, “Noriaki-chan’s Narwhale Nummy-Nums; they’re num-num breakfast fun.’” The child’s mother takes a photo. Gintoki takes a moment to picture sweet, sweet Hinamori-chan, who would pout cutely when Gintoki didn’t feel like winning her a goldfish, and who would never dress up like a goddamned narwhale.

“I do not know what you’re making such a fuss about,” says Zura, dusting off his flippers. 

“You mislead me! You blatantly mislead me! You said _‘I will see you there!’_ ”

“And I meant I would see you here. Which I am.”

“Noriaki-chaaaan!”

Gintoki takes a tray of colourful dango and slams it down over Noriaki-chan’s horn.

 **#48 – Ugly**  
“Stop humping my leg,” says Katsura groggily, without turning over or even opening his eyes.

“I’m not humping anything,” replies Gintoki, sounding rather affronted. His breath is tickling Katsura’s ear. “I’m establishing physical contact with you as a means of showing my affection.”

“You’re establishing your _thing_ into my _thigh._ ”

“You’re vulgar in the mornings,” mumbles the Yorozuya, nibbling contentedly on the side of Katsura’s neck. “I like it.”

“I don’t care, shut up.”

“Grumpy, too,” adds Gintoki, without sounding very apologetic [and without _shutting up_ , either, Katsura notes sadly]. A hand strokes across Katsura’s bare hip, right where his sword would be resting. “Though it’s quite the insult that you are so grumpy, you know. Some people would give their grandsons to wake up next to yours truly.”

“Some people eat dirt,” retorts the rebel, but a soft, surprised “uh” on the end takes the bite out of the statement. Gintoki’s fingers have wrapped around him beneath the blankets, fondling him lazily. He squirms into the touch, waking up just enough to keep himself from groaning. The white-haired man leans over, throwing his leg on top of Katsura’s and initiating a slow, meandering kiss, fingers never stilling. When they part, Katsura realizes he’s been shifted beneath the other man, effectively trapped from escape.

Tricky bastard. 

“Gintoki...”

“Yes?”

“Your mouth tastes like garbage. Go brush your teeth.”

“Deal with it. Do I complain when you come here stinking like gun powder? Aa? Do I?”

Katsura can’t think with that whole hand rubbing at him, now. “Y-yes.”

“Well, that’s a burden you must bear.”

“I thought that was just you in general.” The fingers stop their torturous caresses, and Katsura has to bite the inside of his lip not to whine. His eyes slit open to see a looming, un-amused looking Gintoki, so he lifts a sleep-clumsy hand to pat the other’s cheek. “I have accepted it. Don’t look so put-out.”

“Maybe if you put out,” grumbles the white-haired man, nipping sharply at Katsura’s jaw. Before he has a chance to respond, two hands yank Katsura’s knees apart [and the small shout he gives has more laughter in it than Katsura would like to admit]. 

He blushes at the blankets sliding down Gintoki’s back as the other man leans up, and flails out a clawing hand to yank them back above waist-line. Gintoki rolls his eyes. “Nobody’s watching.”

“You’re watching,” accuses Katsura, embarrassed. 

“What the hell am I supposed to watch!”

“Just pull them back up!”

Gintoki grumbles, but the need to satisfy his libido wins out over the will to fight Katsura over any of the rebel’s peculiarities [it usually does]. After yanking up the blanket, he wets two fingers in his mouth, and then drops the hand down between Katsura’s thighs, slipping back and finding his mark.

Katsura shifts against the intrusion, trying to relax. “No more, ah...?”

“You can say ‘foreplay,’ you’re more than old enough,” murmurs Gintoki. “And no. If you wanted foreplay, you should have woken up earlier. You missed it.”

“I see.”

“It was really good, too, in case you were wondering.”

The fingers pressing into him gain entrance against the resistance, sliding deeper and establishing a rhythm. But Gintoki is impatient, already trying to add a third, and the pull on his muscles burns. “Slow down,” breathes Katsura, rocking his hips tentatively against the digits. “It’s been a few days...”

“I’m aware,” Gintoki says dryly, and the chuckle escapes Katsura before he can stop it. “Oh, you think it’s funny? When Gin-chan’s little sword rots and falls off from disuse, will you laugh then, too?”

“Probably.”

“Bastard,” mutters Gintoki, fingers giving a particularly vicious thrust. Katsura yelps, long legs involuntarily spreading and kicking up. The blanket gets wrenched from Gintoki’s waist to Katsura’s shins, and this time he _does_ whine.

“P-pull them up...”

“No,” hums the other man, fingers twisting deeper. Katsura writhes, _his_ fingers twisting into the sheets in turn, and Gintoki’s voice is smug when he asks, “Ready yet?”

“No,” Katsura grits back, even though he is. Gintoki sighs, keeping up an unyielding pace that’s slowly turning the base of Katsura’s spine into butter. 

The Yorozuya doesn’t catch on to Katsura’s game until the second badly aborted groan. “You _selfish_ little-” he growls, removing his hand from between them. 

“Foreplay,” responds Katsura, cheeks colouring deeply at the word even as he gives a small smirk.

“Never again,” huffs Gintoki haughtily. “You used up your quota for the whole year now. I hope you’re happy.” He fumbles beside the futon, digging around in his discarded kimono from last night.

“That’s tacky,” murmurs Katsura as the tube is produced. He purposefully lets his eyelids droop like a character from a dirty doujin, looks up at Gintoki from beneath his bangs. “Do you want me to-”

“ _No,_ you’re going to be an asshole, you have your ‘I’m going to be an asshole’ face on.”

“We must look like twins.”

“Don’t bring that kind of talk in here, that’s not my kink. Uhm, hnn.” Despite the other’s protestations, Katsura drops his hand at the noise, covering Gintoki’s as he slicks himself. “Shit,” swears Gintoki, grinding into the attention, and the rebel casts a critical eye down.

“Oh. That’s why you’re in such a rush. Well, I guess I did need to be going soon.”

Gintoki flushes, quickly moving the rebel’s hand away. “I’m gonna kill you, shut up.”

“Pull up the blankets.”

“Ughhh,” groans Gintoki [not in pleasure]. He does so, then positions himself between the other’s legs, spreading them wider than they need to go. The other samurai buries his face in Katsura’s neck as he makes that first push, and [despite his previous grumbling and impatience], he does it slowly. 

When he’s all the way in and pauses, Katsura exhales sharply and finds himself arching almost uncomfortably, clutching at that stupid perm. He doesn’t release it, trying to force down the mad, fluttering panic feeling in his chest, focus on anything but the painful stretch.

“Yeah?” Gintoki pants to his collarbone.

“Mm,” he sighs, petting the wild tufts of white hair. They feel soft against his palm, and he knots his fingers into them as the other man raises his head and presses a hard, insistent kiss to his lips. It’s dizzying, and Katsura kisses back with no reservations [Gintoki’s breath is bad, but his kisses are skilled enough to make up for it].

Gintoki pulls back, thrusts again [and again, and again], and the smaller man wraps long legs tighter around the other’s waist as the stinging pain recedes into a mounting pleasure. When another thrust doesn’t follow, he hisses “ _Gintoki-_ ” and raises his hips up a few times.

The only answer he gets at first is a distinctly wicked chuckle. “Now who’s-” oh god, and _there_ is the answering push, driving into him _deep_ , “-humping, Zura?”

“Katsura,” corrects the rebel breathlessly, even as his fingers dig into Gintoki’s shoulder blades.

“No,” the other man smirks, hips now moving at a growing pace, “You should be saying, ‘Gintoki.”

“Shut up,” bites Katsura. “Ah, _nn-_ ”

“‘Gin-sam _aaa_ ’ is... also acceptable.”

Nails scoring down Gintoki’s back, Katsura’s eyes shutter as he breathes, “Stop t-talking... _paahead,_ ” and surprisingly, Gintoki does, focusing all his energy on driving Katsura insane with his dumb body instead of his dumb mouth. Katsura hates and loves this part of sex; with each roll of Gintoki’s toned hips, he’s losing the control he prides himself on, awash in the pleasure. It feels like too many things, none of which correspond; disgustingamazing-uglybeautiful-vulnerablesafe-wrongright. 

Mostly, it’s giving in but not _defeat_ , and as Gintoki cups his face and the pace gets faster, _faster_ , Katsura can’t help it anymore. He lets his head fall to the side as he moans [loud and throaty and there’s just no room for embarrassment or giving a _damn_ about the stupid _blankets_ with how good this feels, how good _Gintoki_ feels].

“Gintoki, _Gintoki,_ ” he shouts hoarsely, vacillating between meeting Gintoki counter-thrust for thrust and just letting himself be pounded into. He can tell the other man is getting close as his movements become more uneven, and Katsura lifts his legs up higher, wider, refusing to be left behind. His voice is a faltering, unsteady thing when he begs, “Harder, Gintoki, please...”

The other man groans at the choked plea and tucks his arms under Katsura for better leverage as he complies. Each push becomes a circuitry overload as Gintoki repeatedly hits _that spot_ , and it’s too much. Katsura lets out a strangled gasp and barely has his hand wrapped around himself before he’s coming undone, shuddering powerfully as his orgasm overtakes him. Still thrusting, Gintoki swears with feeling, says something that might be his name but could be gibberish for all the rebel can tell [still stranded in a sea of breathless _oh my god_ ]. The Yorozuya bites bruising and hard at Katsura’s neck as he comes [and although it’s definitely above the line of a high kimono collar, Katsura could care less].

They collapse together, heavy breaths mixing. After a long while, Gintoki shifts off the smaller man, hitting the futon beside him like a dead weight. “Your legs are shaking,” he murmurs, pushing Katsura’s long hair out of his face.

Katsura tries to respond, but he’s still too overwhelmed to do much but nod. Luckily, the other samurai must be too worn out to gloat over his bedroom prowess, as he just gives a tired [if intensely satisfied] grin. His hand drifts down to rest on Katsura’s thigh, firm and neutral, until it stops quaking. 

It’s of course completely absurd, but the action makes the rebel blush the hardest yet, and he cranes his neck at an awkward angle to give the other a strange kiss [one that says everything he can’t about what it’s like to truly trust someone, and what it’s like to feel that you are exactly where you are meant to be].

When they separate, Katsura’s blush has finally receded. He’s also managed to get control of his tongue. “Go brush your teeth now, garbage-mouth,” he slurs.

 **#49 – Fire**  
Sometimes he burns toohardtoobright, and Gintoki can tell when he’s reaching his limit before the other even opens his mouth [all that frustration rolling off him like waves of forest-fire heat, knocking everything back]. The Yorozuya tries his best to deter the impending explosion, derail the conversation from _we didn’t get through to them they didn’t even hear us_ and the _another two got arrested today and three just quit and left_ , but there’s no room for his asides and jokes with Zura’s passion eating up all the oxygen around them. 

It doesn’t happen often that Zura loses his focus like this, but the burden he slung across his shoulders years ago has only grown in weight and size [and something, every once in a while, has to give]. Today is somehow worse than the small handful of other times he has seen the rebel crumble under the pressure; he hasn’t even touched the tea that Gintoki, being the thoughtful person he is, actually bothered brewing for the other man.

Gintoki is trying to formulate a snide remark about his tea not being good enough for snooty wigheads, but can’t seem to make the comment make sense in his head, when the black haired samurai breaches the tense quiet. “I’m failing them,” he says tightly, and his gaze drops to his hands, which he twists in his lap in jerky, distraught motions that would seem bizarrely out of character to most. Gintoki is not most, because he remembers Zura from before the revolution, before the war [before he hardened and taught himself to hide his weaknesses, when he was a ten year old with anxious fingers who had trouble meeting peoples’ eyes]. 

“It’s- _I’m_ not enough,” says Zura, sounding like a child trying not to just cry _no fair_ at a fixed game. The ends of his hair seem like they should be sizzling like bomb fuses with the struggle for self-control. Gintoki almost wants to laugh at the irony, but knows it wouldn’t be the kind of laughter that would make either of them feel any better.

He has a hard time trying to find the appropriate words, the words Zura needs to hear to remember why he’s sacrificed any chance he had at a normal life for this stupid, stupid cause. But, as with most situations, Gintoki says what he really thinks, instead. “If it’s too hard, give it up.”

“I can’t,” breathes the other man. “Giving up is not the right thing to do.”

“The world isn’t that black and white, Zura. Tch, how can someone who sorts everything into _right_ and _wrong_ enjoy anything?”

“I don’t need to enjoy anything. I just need to see this through.”

“What about what you _want_ to do?”

“I want this,” says Zura, but the assertion isn’t as sturdy as it usually is, it’s foundations charred with uncertainty.

Gintoki doesn’t comment on it, only saying, “It’s what you chose,” but he could slap himself when the shorter man flinches like he’s been hit. Zura’s hands twist so violently he becomes aware of their movement, then immediately ashamed of them [and he slides the hands deep into the sleeves of his haori to quell them, just like Sensei taught him to].

“I,” he stammers. “I’m sorry for…this. Thank you for the tea. I will see myself...”

As he tries to make his escape, Gintoki catches his kimono. He pulls him unceremoniously back onto the couch, back into him. Damnit, Zura looks young because he _is_ young, and the slope of what should be youthful shoulders feels too weathered and narrow against Gintoki’s chest [too bowed from the responsibility]. 

It is a long time before Zura speaks again, and the smouldering frustration is gone, replaced with a genuine sense of loss. “...What am I supposed to do?”

“What you can.”

“Until what? Until we win? Until we lose? Or until I just _can’t_ -” the rebel breaks off, his face flushing deeply in shame at himself [everything is suspected treason to Zura, his own thoughts and actions under the hardest scrutiny of all].

Heaving a sigh to rival the several that the other has exhaled, Gintoki cards a hand back through his perm. “Still too goddamned black and white,” he mumbles. He hesitates, but adds, “...You’re just human.” His fingers slip up the grey sleeve of the other man’s haori, seeking the other’s wrist. With a clumsy tug, Gintoki pulls that nervous [human] hand out and smoothes down the clenching fingers. “Don’t forget that.”

There’s another extended silence as Zura seems to roll that around under all that hair. When the rebel turns his head, there’s a small light back in his eyes, a candle of rekindling conviction. He gives a short nod, threading his fingers with Gintoki’s.

[And sure, the world is drenched in shades of grey, but Zura will always be as white as the scorching centre of a blazing flame].

 **#50 - Welcome**   
“Otose-san, Otose-san!” hails Catherine from behind the bar as soon as Otose walks through the door. The amanto is wreathed in cigarette smoke already, even though it’s not even eight in the morning [the older woman tries not to wonder if the cigarette hanging from Catherin’s lips was out of her own stash]. “Otose-san, that woman was here again. She just left.”

“Aa, I can’t believe it. Did you get a good look at her this time?” asks the owner, placing her shopping bag on the counter. “Get me a basket from the lower shelf,” she adds, and when Catherine does, Otose pulls her fresh fruits out of the bag and arranges them in the wicker. She doesn’t really care for dragon fruits or papayas, but they’ll make her bar look nice [that is, until that black hole of a little girl comes downstairs to say good morning].

Catherine puts her chin in her hand, shaking her head. “Not really. It’s hard to believe that permed loser could get any woman, tch. Do you think she’s a hooker?”

“If he’s blowing my rent on hookers, I’ll have his balls.” As the older woman settles herself onto her stool, she looks up at the clock. Five after eight. It’s completely within her bounds to have a cigarette. Just to start the day right. “Give me a light, would you?”

“Her kimono looked pretty expensive for a hooker...” the amanto replies absently, flicking the catch on her lighter as Otose leans forward. And yes, her eyes are old, but they haven’t lost any of their spark [the spark that tells Catherine to stop pricing people if she knows what’s good for her]. Click, click, flame. The first inhale is as blissful as ever [good morning, Edo].

The two women smoke in amiable silence for a few moments [the sun spreading across the floor, slow syrup]. Eventually, Catherine dismisses herself without prompting. “Aaah, he’s too damn cheap to buy a woman, anyway. He’d be the type to ask for change.”

Otose gives a raspy laugh. She thinks about her upstairs lodger often- she supposes she’s at the age in which one dwells [although what age that is will, rightly so, remain a mystery]. The lack of women over the time she’s boarded Gintoki has not gone unnoticed. At first, it was understandable- he was a man broken by war, putting himself back together, like so many other lost samurai. Then, it became a pleasant surprise- after all, she didn’t have to put up with any improper behavior, or sleazy characters hanging around her snack bar. 

Until a few weeks ago, the absence had been slowly edging into something that legitimately bothered her when she dwelled [as customary of this age]. After all, she knows [sees with old, sparklight eyes] beyond the perm, beyond the nose-picking and the complaining, to the strong, reliable man Sakata Gintoki is. Surely the women of Edo aren’t so blind, so focused on appearances and shallow things-

“A _real_ expensive kimono,” says a glassy-eyed Catherine. Otose calmly pulls one of the younger woman’s ears outwards [ignoring the explosion of noise with practiced ease]. Alright, perhaps most women of fast-paced Edo were preoccupied with shallow things, but perhaps this mystery woman wasn’t. 

Although the two women had watched Ketsuno Ana’s weather report, the girl did not predict the day’s high chance of coincidence. After weeks of near-misses and unexplained absences, the elusive woman returns. Two sets of feet descend the wooden stair winding around Otose’s building, Catherine’s ears perking in appropriately catlike curiosity at the noise [one light and purposeful, one clunky and lazy].

“-to think I give a crap,” the useless, rent-withholding bastard is saying. “What kind of fool are you, aa? I should have guessed you would be the type to be easily taken in by flashy neon signs and stupid furries with flyers. That’s what this is really about, isn’t it? That fuzzy idiot in the cat suit.”

“That the mascot of Fukubari’s Discount Grocer’s is an adorable kitty-nyao-chan has nothing to do with this.” Otose’s thin eyebrows arch. That voice seems rather deep, to her [and why does she find herself thinking of Saigou?].

“You’re lying through your teeth. You’re _lying_ through your soba-filled teeth.”

“My teeth are perfectly brushed, asshole!”

“This is such a pain. I don’t see why Elizabeth can’t drive you.”

“Her license is temporarily suspended. She got a DUI.”

“Why should I have to suffer because Elizabeth has a drinking problem?”

“ _Elizabeth doesn’t have a drinking problem!_ ”

“All that arguing,” mutters Catherine pessimistically, tapping the filter of her cigarette. “Huh, she won’t be around long.” Otose doesn’t reply, listening quietly [it only counts as eavesdropping if those being eavesdropped on aren’t shouting, after all]. The arguing pair becomes suddenly framed in the window; Gintoki is holding onto the handlebars of his scooter and glaring down at a woman with long, well-cared for black hair, and dark purple lipstick that subtly compliments the colours of her floral kimono. “She’s too pretty for him,” the younger woman beside her adds critically, and Otose shushes her [there’s so much more than exteriors, and she hopes one day, Catherine will learn that].

“And do you really have to wear that ridiculous get-up?” the Yorozuya asks. “How am I supposed to get any work if people see me hanging around with somebody dressed like that?”

“It is necessary to avoid detection.” The woman puts her hands in her kimono sleeves, tipping her chin up proudly, stance widening. It’s an oddly masculine gesture, reflects Otose. “You’d rather have me decapitated? Is that it? You’d rather see me lose my head?”

“I didn’t say- don’t put words in my mouth, you bastard!”

 _Bastard?_ thinks Otose, the insult sticking in her mind. Slowly, her eyes widen [she is old, and she has seen much, but now she has seen _everything_ ]. She misses some of the bickering with the revelation, and when she begins paying attention again, the two _men_ are getting onto Gintoki’s scooter.

After a long moment, the Yorozuya turns around abruptly, shoving the scooter’s helmet into the black haired man’s hands. “To protect your stupid brainless _head,_ ” he grumbles.

The other man says nothing, putting the helmet on. Only when Gintoki twists roughly back around, he smiles [a barely noticeable lifting of his lips, all the more warm for it’s understatement]. 

Otose nods to herself in something like approval.

“I still think she’s a whore,” says Catherine.

The older woman sighs, serenely reaching again for the amanto’s ear.  



End file.
